


Dragon Trails

by 50_points_for_ravenclaw



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff, Might do a little more with this later, Pidge Holiday Exchange 2018, mostly just some short fun, some world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 01:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17193755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/50_points_for_ravenclaw/pseuds/50_points_for_ravenclaw
Summary: Shiro and his dragon went missing 8 years ago and Matt has had no luck finding him. Now that she's old enough, Pidge has taken it upon herself to find him, even if she has to travel outside the comfortable safety of her village.(The title is totally not a play on 'Dragon Tales'.)





	Dragon Trails

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ncj700](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ncj700/gifts).



> This is my work for the Pidge Holiday Exchange for [Natalie](http://kidge-kat.tumblr.com/). I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you enjoy this little fic and have a wonderful holiday! (:

Some days Pidge wondered why she’d ever left home to scour the known world. She hated most things to do with nature, and she’d also made the mistake of asking Lance and Hunk to tag along. They were her best friends, but even she grew tired of their antics after a while. She missed Matt, her parents, her experimentations and inventions. At least Hunk was a good cook.

But Matt had been right when he said she needed to see more than just the walls of her workshop. Their village was small and ordinary, built on generations of farmers and up-and-coming engineering families. The Holts alone had revolutionized the irrigation system used on large plantations. 

Outside the village though, there was more than just agriculture. The cities were huge with cobbled streets and horse-drawn carriages boasting all kinds of people from nobles and politicians to artists and entrepreneurs. The north was full of mountain ranges, cold and dry. The east was made mostly of forest, hot and wet. Pidge had read about places like this before when she was young and still more interested in fiction than generator engine manuals. She’d never thought she would get the chance to see them in person.

And then of course there were dragons.

Pidge couldn’t count how many nights she’d fallen asleep to Matt’s voice, weaving tales of dragons and their riders. He liked to boast that his best friend was a dragon rider himself. The idea was thrilling until Pidge met Shiro and realized how dorky the man actually was, so unlike the dark brooding heroes in Matt’s stories.

Still, Shiro was a dragon rider, and that meant she got to meet a dragon in person younger than most. His dragon, Kerberos, was an old girl huge and covered in midnight black scales that shown iridescent in the sunlight. She’d nudged Pidge gently in the stomach with her large snout and snorted smoke when Pidge’s tiny form toppled over. Shiro had chided the great beast then, but Pidge was immediately enamored. 

Unfortunately, she never had the chance to ride Kerberos as she and Shiro disappeared before Pidge was old enough, almost eight years ago now. Matt still had nightmares about all the possible horrors that could have befell his friend.

That was part of the reason why Pidge had decided to set off outside her comfort zone. Shiro had become part of their family, and if there was a chance she could discover what happened to him, she would grasp it with everything she had. Matt had grown tired from his own investigations, so Pidge decided it was her turn.

Lance and Hunk were an unexpected addition to her plans.

“I’m just saying man, if I’m going to find a dragon to tame it’s not going to be back at our boring village,” Lance said. 

Hunk gave a thoughtful nod. Pidge rolled her eyes and spun around to face her companions, walking backwards with uncareful steps.

“You don’t tame dragons, Lance,” she said. “You build a bond with them. They’re their own creatures with their own thoughts and emotions. You try to tame one, and you’re likely to get your arm bit off.”

“Whatever,” Lance drawled.

“It’s disrespectful,” Pidge urged. “They aren’t pets.”

“I didn’t say that!” Lance frowned at her. Hunk had fallen to whipping his head back and forth between them, expression slowly tightening in worry as the tension between them rose.

“Well, you implied it!”

“Since when are you all animal guru?”

Pidge narrowed her eyes. “I’m not. I just know more about dragons than you.”

“Pidge!”

Hunk’s shout startled her enough to trip her feet out from underneath her. She crashed to the ground ungracefully, sending a cloud of dirt into the air and a sharp pain down her arm. A loud thump shook the earth beneath her, and it was then she heard the unmistakable sound of wings beating at the air, large and powerful.

With her body almost frozen in her shock, Pidge turned her head slowly toward the sound and then up, up, up. Her gaze met a golden dragon’s eye, peering down at her with what looked like disdain. The dragon’s wings stretched, measuring at least 50 feet across, and then relaxed at his sides. The dust settled as did silence.

Pidge took the moment to absorb the sight of the dragon’s fiery red scales, colors shifting anywhere from garnet gemstone to that of the inside of a blood orange. They were smooth and flat, obviously meant to aid the dragon in speed. He was smaller than Kerberos by far, but Pidge thought he may still be fully grown judging by the proportions of his limbs and the length of his horns. 

“You’re a Galran dragon,” she breathed, eyes widening. 

Pidge never thought she’d be lucky enough to come across a Galran dragon in the wild. She’d read that they were mostly military dragons, primarily because of their speed and agility in flight and how useful their fire affinities could be in battle. They were known to be a more aggressive and temperamental breed. Many a Galran dragon had destroyed entire battalions single-handedly. Pidge gulped audibly, reaching carefully to adjust her glasses.

“Uh, Pidge,” Hunk whispered, voice trembling. “What do we do?”

“I...I have no idea,” she said.

“You’re the dragon expert,” Lance hissed. 

She quickly shut down the urge to yell at him as the panic in his voice was very real and quite understandable. But she also wasn’t an expert. The only dragon she had ever been around was Kerberos, and she’d been kinder than any other creature Pidge ever met, except for maybe Shiro. This was a military bred dragon with the instinct to attack first and not worry about the consequences.

Just as she made up her mind to try and appeal to him, the dragon’s head twitched to the side, his body shifting minutely.

“Hey!” a voice called a moment later. “What are you doing?”

The dragon gave her one last glance filled with apathy over her current terrified state and then sauntered toward the figure running their way. He accepted the hand that skimmed along his neck and chin before his muscles coiled and then pushed off, wings snapping out to beat furiously until the dragon was in the air again. The person turned their attention to Pidge and her friends.

“What are you doing here? You can’t just wander into dragon herd lands,” the person -- man -- said. 

He crossed his arms as he came to a stop in front of them. It wasn’t until he looked down at Pidge that she realized she was still crouched on the ground and quickly made to stand, pushing her glasses back into place once more and weakly brushing some of the dirt from her clothes.

“Who are you?” Lance said before she could speak up. “This is public land. We can walk through here if we want. And we’d appreciate it if you kept your dragon from attacking us.”

“He isn’t my dragon,” the man said with a scowl. “He’s his own being, and I can’t make him do or not do anything. You should be more careful.”

“We’re sorry,” Hunk blurted. “We were just walking and then the big scary dragon came out of nowhere and almost ate Pidge. Thank god you’re okay!”

He turned to her and pulled her against his soft chest. It had been a little while since they had the chance to wash their clothes, and Pidge grimaced at the sour smell coming from Hunk’s tunic. She shoved away from him as soon as his grip loosened.

“I’m fine,” she said with just the slightest edge to her voice. She turned to the man. “It was an honest mistake. We didn’t know there are wild dragons around here.”

The man stared at her a moment. His shoulders finally relaxed as if accepting whatever he saw in her as safe. “Red isn’t wild. I’m his rider.”

“Red? Real original,” Lance muttered. The man shot him an icy glare.

“Are you a soldier?” Pidge asked before she could stop herself.

The man’s expression darkened but then shifted back almost as quickly. “No,” was all he said. “You three should head back to the main road. You’re less likely to encounter anymore dragons that way.”

Pidge wanted to question him further on the subject, but it was clear he wasn’t willing to share. Instead, she placed her hands on her hips and gave him her best ‘Colleen Holt look of determination’. 

“That’s the opposite of what we want,” she said.

“It is?” Hunk whined behind her.

She huffed and resettled her shoulders into a straight line. “We’re looking for a dragon named Kerberos and her rider, Shiro.”

The man tensed, hands clenching to fists. It was a stance Pidge had seen amongst the meatheads at the tavern back in their village just as they’d decided to start a fight. On this man, the fists looked more like they were holding something in rather than about to unleash.

“What do you want with Shiro?” he practically growled. 

“You know him?” she gasped. “Is he here? Where is he? He’s alive?”

The man grew steadily more weary as she went on until he cut her off with a slash of his hand. “Who are you exactly?

“My name is Pidge,” she said. “I knew Shiro and Kerberos when I was a kid, but they disappeared when I was eight. Now I’m looking for them. Are they really alive?”

He stared a moment longer. “Yes,” he sighed finally. 

“Can you please tell me where to find them?” she pleaded.

Pidge held her breath as the man seemed to argue with himself. Gritting his teeth, he flicked his head back the way he came. “Follow me.”

“Wait, what? We’re just going to follow the weird dragon guy with a mullet, no questions asked?” Lance said. “What if he’s bad news?” Said dragon guy reached up to touch the strands of black hair at the nape of his neck with a frown.

“Uh, yeah. I think I agree with Lance on this one, Pidge,” Hunk said, wringing his hands in front of himself.

“My name is Keith,” the man said. “I know you don’t trust me. I don’t really trust you guys either. But Red didn’t hurt you which means you can’t be all bad, and if you know Shiro...then I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Please guys. This is the first lead we’ve gotten in weeks,” Pidge implored to her friends. 

Lance seemed to cave first, and with one look from him Hunk folded, too. They both nodded reluctantly and then smiled when Pidge’s eyes lit up.

“Okay, we’ll go with you,” she said to Keith with a grin. “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to Shiro,” he said.

Pidge felt her heart trip over itself, simultaneously beating faster and skipping beats. Keith smiled a little at whatever expression had overcome her face and gestured with a wave for them to follow him. She only came to when a large shadow passed over them. Looking up, she could see Red gliding through the air above them, taking lazy turns in order to circle their position.

Keith did some sort of complicated whistle, and Red flew higher into the sky disappearing once he reached the clouds. Pidge smiled up at the sight. She remembered Kerberos and Shiro communicating in what seemed like a secret language only they knew. By the time they had vanished, she’d learned a couple of the different whistles Shiro used to speak to the dragon. She wanted desperately to try them out on Red and see if he would react the same.

Looking back at Keith, she saw him waiting for her. Hunk and Lance simply shrugged when she glanced over her shoulder at them and stepped up on either side of her. Facing forward, she moved to catch up to Keith’s quick stride, ignoring the smug quirk to his lips when she struggled. She could just wait until she saw Kerberos and Shiro again, and she’d give it a try then.

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [my tumblr](http://50-points-for-ravenclaw.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
